Regardless of whether I'm bored or not, I mainly tab between the xkcd forums and Sandcastle Builder a lot throughout the day. When I'm slightly more bored than usual, I visit the Science and Computing Reference Desks on Wikipedia. Damn You Autocorrect is usually good for some daily funnies. Two places I really shouldn't be visiting are bash.org (an archive of IRC quotes) and the Off The Wall section of forums.gentoo.org: both are completely politically incorrect and generally rather despicable, but, like monkeys flinging shit at each other, nevertheless entertaining to watch. And if I really need to pass a few hours, there's also TVTropes.

Although I'm getting a spambotty vibe from this post, I must admit that I find browsing DealeXtreme quite enjoyable. They have pretty much anything you can think of, and most of it is cheaper than dirt.

Also, fuck the "never be bored" thing. Or, I guess the "constant flow of information" thing. You've got to sit around alone, not listening to shit, not doing shit, to give yourself time to think of new shit with no pressure, no reason, nothing directing your thoughts other than you. That's when I compile what I've learned and try to refine my opinions, for example.

Boredom is useful.

heuristically_alone wrote:I want to write a DnD campaign and play it by myself and DM it myself.

heuristically_alone wrote:I have been informed that this is called writing a book.

SecondTalon wrote:Also, fuck the "never be bored" thing. Or, I guess the "constant flow of information" thing. You've got to sit around alone, not listening to shit, not doing shit, to give yourself time to think of new shit with no pressure, no reason, nothing directing your thoughts other than you. That's when I compile what I've learned and try to refine my opinions, for example.

Boredom is useful.

I wholeheartedly agree. Boredom is part of what makes people creative, gets them thinking of new solutions and new things to do.

Life purposes, as a concept, are hugely overrated, IMO. People think too grandly of themselves and their place in this world as it is without also telling themselves they have a life purpose or are supposed to have one. In fact, I'd say that the need for a life purpose could potentially generate feelings of boredom because the individual has a belief that they must be doing something with their life so sitting around is counter-productive (and they must be productive).

Westy wrote:I meant to say that you should never feel bored BECAUSE you have nothing to do. There's always something to do!

Start by doing personal development. All the rest will follow.

While there's always something to do (and sometimes I long for the days of yore when there wasn't some insurmountable to-do list looming over the foreseeable future and beyond), there's a limit to what one can achieve at one's workstation, especially when one has pressing obligations. Personal development frequently requires a strenuous effort of the sort from which one may need a brief respite over the course of one's day.

Hence I am very curious as to what sites you may be visiting to achieve "personal development".

Jorpho wrote:Hence I am very curious as to what sites you may be visiting to achieve "personal development".

Recently I have been teaching myself php and updating my html and css skills by modifying a php rpg engine/game someone else wrote a decade ago. If this is something you, or anyone, is interested in doing alongside me, see my sig.

Another site I've frequented in the past for personal development is http://www.excelforum.com. This is a support forum for and by Excel users. I learned a TON of Excel tricks and VBA programming there by supporting others and attempting to answer questions, and it landed me a better career.

I just look at plants. I love plants. I wish my garden window were bigger, or that I had a greenhouse. Right now, I'm growing; African Violets (10 standards, 2 miniatures, and 4 micro miniatures), Succulents (5 of them, not including my infinite aloe), 3 Lucky Bamboo, a Venus Fly Trap, White Clover, a Jasmine, and probably a few other plants that I can't remember off the top of my head.

If I need to switch things up, I'll watch YouTube videos (that aren't about plants), look at clothing, look at art, random through xkcd comics, check my email, go to different forum sites, watch Robocup (and other NAO videos), read programming tutorials (even for languages I might never use. This thing is a rare occasion for me though. I have to really be in a programming funk to language hop). I really surf the web. If I'm lucky, I catch the big kahuna (did I use the right hip lingo?) and I'm entertained for hours.

Of course, if you've got absolutely nothing else to do, there are sites like bored button, the useless web, and pointless sites.

Actually, it's not because I'm bored; I'm just procrastinating. And everyone know how that evolves: from procrastinating comes porn and from porn comes hentai and from hentai comes good stories* and before you know it you're reading the most adroable manhua** until deep into the night.

Does that keep you away from imgur, Link?

*like оglaf says: "I need a convoluted narrative to really get off".

[edit]**it became clear that this isn't a japanese comic come the scene with the chinese flag, so it's manhua, not manga.

SecondTalon wrote:Also, fuck the "never be bored" thing. Or, I guess the "constant flow of information" thing. You've got to sit around alone, not listening to shit, not doing shit, to give yourself time to think of new shit with no pressure, no reason, nothing directing your thoughts other than you. That's when I compile what I've learned and try to refine my opinions, for example.

Boredom is useful.

I wholeheartedly agree. Boredom is part of what makes people creative, gets them thinking of new solutions and new things to do.

When I'm in the lab doing repetitive tasks like moving mice from their cages to the experimental hoods and back, I get into a very trance-like zone, which, exactly, is a great time to collect my thoughts. Unfortunately I rarely write them down, so when it comes time to discuss the topic in-person or online, I often have to start over.

Whenever I'm looking at a screen and think, "what do I want to look at now?" and can't come up with anything, I know that's when it's time to not force myself to stay in front of a computer and go be alone with my thoughts.

SecondTalon wrote:Also, fuck the "never be bored" thing. Or, I guess the "constant flow of information" thing. You've got to sit around alone, not listening to shit, not doing shit, to give yourself time to think of new shit with no pressure, no reason, nothing directing your thoughts other than you. That's when I compile what I've learned and try to refine my opinions, for example.

Boredom is useful.

I wholeheartedly agree. Boredom is part of what makes people creative, gets them thinking of new solutions and new things to do.

Someone here linked me to this a while back, and I completely agree with the proposal for this reason.

I usually read biographies of random people coming to my head: Napoleon, Obama, Tolstoy, Princess Diana… Sometimes it’s getting really ridiculous and I can’t focus at my work until I check some life details of this or that person. It’s annoying sometimes. I just google it, don’t have any specific web-source. Or sometimes when I am bored I dream if I sell my house what kind of property I can possibly buy in Spain or anywhere in Europe (as I have Spanish roots). My dream is to buy a small hotel or any other commercial property: a bar or restaurant in Spain and set up a business there. This is the site where I check my options https://tranio.com/spain/commercial/. I am originally from Malaga, but I am looking also at Alicante and Barcelona area.